KDE reached a milestone last week with therelease of
KDE 3.0, but that doesn't mean that KDE development is finished.
Indeed, many things still need improvement and many exciting features
have yet to be added to KDE. Fortunately, there are
a number of different ways in which you can help make KDE
better!

Help with Money

KDE is available for free and will always be available for free,
including each and every line of its source code, for everyone to modify
and distribute. If you enjoy KDE, please consider supporting the KDE
Project financially. KDE is in constant need of funds in order to
finance its operations and to get the word out about KDE.

Making donations to KDE is now easier than ever, since recently theKDE League opened several KDEPayPal accounts. You can choose
to donate either to:

KDE e.v., which
uses funds primarily for KDE infrastructure (such as servers
and possibly bandwidth in the future) and to assist developers
who attend developer meetings with expenses; or

KDE League,
which aims to help promote KDE and can also assist developers
who attend developer meetings or prepare and present development
papers with expenses.

In the end KDE is a software project and thus what it mostly needs is code.
If you are interesting in starting to program for KDE, think small:
experience shows that looking at all of KDE can be a touch overwhelming for
people just getting started.

We recommend doing any of the following to get started:

Visit the bugs database, find a
random bug, fix it, and send a patch to the maintainer.

Take a favorite KDE application and implement a missing feature
that you really want.

If history has taught us one thing, it is that developers rarely write
documentation for their own programs. Yet KDE ships with lots of
documentation for individual programs as well as guides and "howtos".
Also, you may have noticed that KDE is translated into many languages.
All of this is done by our dedicatedDocumentation/Internationalization Team.

The team is made up of volunteers that all have various interests in
this area. Some have an editorial bent and help "clean up" incoming
documentation. Some are well versed in several languages and help
translate. Some are excellent writers and deliver high quality
"books".

If you are also interested in making KDE the best documented desktop
out there, please consider joining!

Helping with Feedback

We like it when you tell us how much you like KDE, but we also like
to hear it when things do not work as they should. We rely on your
feedback to make KDE better. You can use thebugs database to report problems and
suggestions for improvements.

To make your reports useful, please make sure to include an accurate
description of the problem and a valid e-mail address, so that we may
contact you about the problem. Please do not use our
bugreporting system for support questions, you will get a much faster
and better answer to your questions on theKDE mailing list.

I think both of these are important if we want to get more people to use KDE, although donations to the KDE League will have less impact on the overall development effort and final product. Still, promotion of the product can be a good thing as well. All of us here know how good KDE is, and probably already have it installed. The people the KDE League is targeting are those who haven't experienced KDE before.

If you're interested only in bettering KDE, and really couldn't care if it is promoted to anyone else, then KDE eV is the place to put all of your donations. But if you check out the KDE League's site (http://www.kdeleague.org) and you like what they're doing, maybe toss a little donation to them on top of your KDE eV one.

The good thing about having the two seperate accounts is that you decide where your money goes. This is certainly a better situation than having one group which divides the funds between interests as it feels fit. I think that is where the KDE League has done well; they keep themselves away from the development and leadership aspects of KDE so that you don't have to interact with them if you don't feel like it.

Speaking out is good, but should be done responsibly. Regrettably, as it stands, both of Neil's statements are inaccurate.

First, KDE eV, in the past, has not been "by and for the KDE development effort." KDE eV was formed to enter into a contract with a certain Norwegian company at the time that Qt was under the original license. Since that time it has done very little for KDE development, most notably because it did not have, or seek to have, any funds. Now that KDE eV is raising money, that will hopefully change (it will definitely change if enough proceeds are raised).

How the money is used is up to the KDE eV membership, subject to the charter, under which KDE eV is a nonprofit that helps KDE. Nevertheless, historically, KDE eV has not been involved with development, and the new donation avenues mark a new and exciting chapter in its life.

Second, the KDE League has not "messed around" in politics. Presumably Neil is referring to the comment in the Microsoft settlement. But that did not cost the League any money.

The more important issue, which Neil ignores, is that KDE eV controls the League. It has a majority position on the Board and a controlling vote at the membership level. Therefor, whether you give to KDE eV or the League, in the end the same entity (KDE eV) controls how that money is spent, though of course in the KDE League it is incumbent on KDE eV to at least consider the wishes of the other members. But both accounts benefit KDE.

The essential difference is that KDE eV could hire and pay a developer to work on KDE (though of course it currently lacks the funds to do anything like that), whereas the KDE League cannot. The KDE League focuses on promotional efforts. However, the League can, under its charter, pay for developers to attend developer meetings or to write papers for publication in computer journals. It can also do useful things like set up PayPal accounts. More importantly, the League can help promote KDE development and use, and possibly convince more developers to develop for KDE.

In fact, it is quite possible that the League can be very successful in encouraging a large number of developers to contribute free code to KDE. In the final analysis, that is the most important promotional objective. Of course, all of this becomes moot should KDE become illegal, hence the MS settlement letter.

Of course you should decide carefully who you want to contribute to. But when you do, you should reach your decision with accurate information.

Neil, I've read your posts here and on KDE Cafe. From what I've seen, with friends like you, KDE doesn't need enemies. In particular, this last posting of yours is disturbing. My inference is that you are accusing Dre of intellectual dishonesty and other malfeasance. You pretty much debase his/her honour. Was that your intent?

I think that you'd really like to make the world a better place. I honestly do. But, man oh man, are you ever going about it in the wrong way. You don't have to be a Pollyana but I'd like to suggest that you find more positive ways to promote KDE.

The MS issue is when the KDE League entered a statement with the US government against a proposed settlement between the US government and Microsoft, thus entering into and taking a stand in US political and legal processes.

>The MS issue is when the KDE League entered a statement with the US government against a proposed settlement between the US government and >Microsoft, thus entering into and taking a stand in US political and legal processes.

Um... yes.... and?

The settlement between the DoJ and M$ seems to already be acted upon by the latter party, or rather, be taken advantage of the naive wording of, in order to further advance their monopoly, penalise OEMs who seek to bundle Linux or dual boot their systems, and to constrain developers as we have seen with the new licences that Microsoft are currently implementing, with anti-GPL wording, mirroring that of the settlement.

It is right that Redhat, IBM and others with an investment in Linux should make themselves heard, since this is now the principle competition to the Redmond monopoly. It is transparent to all that Linux is now a target and that the judicial system and legislature need to be made highly aware of this.

Moreover, with Desktop Environments now familiar to users and the preferred way of interacting with modern computers, handhelds, STBs and soon mobile phones, this is where the new battles for the future of computer interaction will be fought. The KDE as principle environment of Linux these days (no disrespect to GNOME users, yours is nice too :) ) will be facing the brunt of Microsoft's future tactics, most especially licence conditions, software patents against visual metaphors, data representations, work flows, etc. that will control this key battleground.

Should the KDE League have issued a statement? They had more right and more responsibility to do so than Redhat or any other, to be frank.

At the moment, KDE ev. doesn't support any developers. Ideally money goes to both them and the KDE League. If money can only go to one, make it go to the League; because the truth is, if Microsoft manage to legitimise their conduct and manipulate their final judgement to positive effect on their market position, or take their political influence further to the point where Linux and the KDE become crippled or illegal, that is the end of the game. A single law passed without sufficient awareness of potential consequences could destroy the OSS movement entirely. We should be very aware that the fact is, these days, if something is passed into US law, it tends to be enforced upon the rest of the world sooner or later, especially in terms of copyright and patents. This is a significant possibility and a significant risk.

I would love to see more developers paid to work full-time on the KDE. That would be wonderful! But in the end, OSS is always strong because there are always more willing developers, regardless of money. Where we are weak is in advertising and lobbying, and those things are a real problem.

So overall, support the KDE any way you can or feel comfortable. If you aren't quite sure of my arguments, don't give money. Fair enough. Code instead, or as well :) Or help a friend get to know Linux and the KDE for the first time, or a local organisation.

I'll not say much to the rest of your comment, because I find it difficult to understand what you're saying. It *seems* that you're implying that dot.kde.org should only welcome those people who just say "woohoo" to whatever gets posted, but that *can't* be what you mean.

I personally find the kde bug database a bit confusing to use, are there any plans to switch to using bugzilla? I'm sure this has been discussed before somewhere, can someone who knows something about something please give me some details? What are the pros and cons? Would the transition be possible?

> It adds a greater administration overhead while a bug squad team would be
> still missing.

Yep, that's probably true.

So, I should probably learn how to use bugs.kde.org then :)... I'm a bit afraid to file bugs, because the system looks so -- I don't know -- unpolished (or unfamiliar). I'm probably just biased because I'm used to the "bugzilla way".

i fully agree to this, bugzilla is pure confusing crap. i was using it for long reporting bugs to mozilla and gnome stuff. its a pain, i never felt so much confortable than now with bugs.kde.org its clean simple easy.

I strongly disagree. When I reported a bug for the first time using Bugzilla, I immediately understood everything. No confusion, no "help! what should I do now?". Everything was clear since the beginning.

Please notice, that http://events.kde.org is under heavy construction. It is not ready at all and many statements are drafts only. But feel free to contribute informations, resources, links, dates, etc. :-)

I dunno about everyone else but I'm downloading pages at 700B/s. Is there any way you could move it down the story queue, and maybe start a new "Comments on KDE 3" thread to catch all the stray comments people still want to make. You guys _really_ seem to be low on bandwidth lately.

Another thing, when people are posting replies, could you just display the introduction to the story instead of the full thing so it doesn't take so long to download (I've only noticed this recently ;-)? People don't usually respond to the story directly anyway.

Sorry to moan so much, you guys do a fantastic job, and you've really helped build up a wider KDE community, but the site is definitely under a lot of strain at the moment.

Yes actually, I did read the story but I've got just over 100 to get me to the end of June. I'm borrowing from all around me and I'm trying to figure out the Irish tax system to see if I can wrangle any tax back. This is what it's like to be a student. Maybe when I've got a career and money to spare I'll make donations, but until then there's not much I can do. What about you?

Anyway, apparently it's some sort of bandwidth control and not the story that's causing the trouble. Sorry for the fuss.

> Anyway, apparently it's some sort of bandwidth control and not the
> story that's causing the trouble.

Still creating a discussion forum for a release announcement that does not require you to load a 100K+ story again and again only to read and respond to posts (though most people probably only read discussions) and does not require users who just want to read the announcement and are not interested in the discussion to load the first 40 comments could dramatically decrease bandwidth requirements for the dot after an announcement, and might help not to be put under bandwidth control next time. No use spending lots of money on bandwidth fees if you could live with less.

Note: I really like the connection between stories and discussion during normal times, but release times are somewhat different. So why not add a seperate Comments link to the dot homepage during these times to seperate comments from content?

(Also the full announcement is linked from the dot homepage. Is it really necessary to re-post it on the dot? Why not make a brief version without the full list of changes and just link to a more detailed changelog for the dot version? You could still have a full announcement including all changes on www.kde.org. Again this could help reduce bandwidth requirements without reducing the quality of the dot.)